just recovering from shock of discovering dh's affair

[mollynp]

i discovered on friday my husband's affair (after suspecting for a while) after reading his text messages.
it's been going on for six months, there have been a lot of calls, texts and emails and he has kissed her 4 times, though never had sex.
he said he fell in love with her but didn't want to sleep with her as that would be taking it too far.
she is a colleague of his (which i'm not happy about) but he doesn't see her a lot at work as they work in different buildings.
he did go to her flat twice but insists that they only kissed and never slept together.
but even though they never slept together i feel totally devastated. we've been together for 18 years (married for nearly nine) and have 3 young children.
am i being over the top? is this as bad as a normal affair?
he says that it's an awful mistake, that he loves me and doesn't want to leave me and never did and i feel i couldn't live without him (i never expected this!), so don't want him to.
i am totally confused and don't understand how he could have done this to me.

I'm sorry to say it Molly but he is still lying to you. I have known many people in your position, in the position of the adulterer and in the position of the OW and in most cases once the barrier of first contact is broken (kissing), sex will follow pretty soon thereafter. In a 6 month affair, you can guarantee it. The fact that you have unearthed more information yourself following his initial admission shows to you that he is (understandably) reluctant to reveal to you the whole truth unless he is forced to.

His excuses immediately have the ring of dishonesty. "I didn't have enough time to have full sex". Sorry but 15 minutes is enough. Certainly he found the time to develop a romantic relationship with this woman and give her oral sex and for most men, full sex will precede giving a woman oral sex as it is a more intimate act by far. In fact I would suggest that you confront him and say that you know he has had sex with her and until he admits to it, you have no future together.

I don't say this to upset you but simply to tell you that until he comes clean with you, your relationship has no future. Of course you are desperate to believe him but frankly he is taking advantage of that fact. This is clear from his suggestion that the real problem here is your reaction to his philandering. Until he takes responsibility as a man, no progress is possible. And I say this as a man, by the way, as it is his inability to accept full responsibility which is the real problem here.

But there is some good news. In a sense whether or not he had sex with this woman is beside the point as he has betrayed you regardless. If he is able to be honest with you now and express to you genuinely that he regrets his actions and realises what a fool he is and how desperate he is not to lose you, there can be a future for you if he is prepared to work at it. Perhaps others here will say never forgive and you can never trust again but I know a number of people who have managed to come through an affair and save their relationships. Of course there are just as many who cannot and at this stage there is no way of knowing which yours is.

But the starting point must be honesty on his part.

there was a gap of two months between the visits to her flat. he must have had only about half an hour to spend with her on the first visit as it was when he had taken our ds to a birthday party (so he had to be back there in time to pick him up)! Only kissing was supposed to have occured during this visit.
i have ordered the book, hopefully it will arrive soon.
you're probably right about the Romantic Idiot theory as when he admitted it, he did say that he loved her.
with reference to your earlier post, are you suggesting that i tell him that i want him to call her up and let me hear him tell her that he doesn't love her?

WWIFN, postie just gave me the book. we are Ralph and Rachel.

Molly, it's also highly unlikely that there were only two visits to her flat. There were two visits that he has told you about, which is a different thing altogether. They could have met secretly taking a long lunch or they could have taken a half day. He could have feigned a doctor's appointment or a business meeting. The ways of cheating are endless.

His suggestion to you that they did nothing for two months between his first kiss with her and his next dalliance is frankly an insult to your intelligence.

I entirely understand your rhetorical question "when do I start to believe him again". The answer is "when his answers start to make sense and do not involve apportioning blame to you". The suggestion that he had not told you everything because he was worried about you is possibly the most despicable and cowardly thing I have ever heard.

The other answer to "when do I start to believe him again?" is "possibly never, certainly not now"

He has been happily lying to you for at least 6 months and continued to lie, even when confronted, until you had incontrovertible proof.

That is not a person you can trust.

One of the few things you know for sure now is that he is a liar and that you can't trust him to be honest with you.

Whether he can eventually regain your trust will be one of the things that will determine whether your marriage can work.

But right now he can't be trusted, and both of you need to recognise that.

Agree totally schmarn about the total scumminesd of his justifications for his lies - "I did it to protect you", "I did it to save our marriage"

Bollocks - he lied because lying to you is a habit he's grown very comfortable with.

Yes I thought Ralph and Rachel would resonate molly but I'd be interested in your H's take on that; whether he believes his feelings were as strong for the OW as Ralph's were for Lara? From what you've said, it doesn't sound like your H had genuinely deep feelings for the OW after all.

Re, your question, yes I do suggest that you insist your H gives the OW a very clear message - that you can hear or see. I think it will forever haunt you if you have no control over, or knowledge about, what she was told. I'm sure your H will resist doing so, because that will be difficult and uncomfortable, but part of the process of regaining your respect for him is that he does some really uncomfortable things from now on. Now you've got the book, you will see that there must be a wall erected around your marriage and a window shut very firmly in the OW's face. When he wouldn't let you listen to his conversations with the OW after discovery, he was shutting a window to you and letting her still peer in. His loyalties were actually more with her and her feelings, than they were with you and yours at that point. For a man who wanted to stay in his marriage, that's the wrong set of loyalties and priorities.

It doesn't mean he has to be cruel - but it does mean he should be honest with her and tell her his true feelings about you and your marriage; why he is staying and what he now believes this affair was about. This doesn't have to be a phone call incidentally, it can be in the form of a handwritten letter. What ever form it takes, you should be able to see or hear it.

Just a word of caution about getting the message to the ow. I insisted my DH rang the ow in my presence to tell her what he was telling me - that she meant nothing to him, he'd never had any intentions of repeating their one-off sexual encounter, despite her continued pressure etc etc. It was naturally a very difficult thing for him to do and he didn't do it at all well. She twigged it was being done for my benefit and afterwards sent him a text saying how sorry she felt for him being forced to say such things and that is was ok because she knew the extent of his true feelings for her. Without rehashing my story I have a great deal of evidence/pointers that my dh didn't care much at all for the ow (his was a feelings induced affair). I am confident that the text was sent for my benefit to rattle me as the ow but still, it's not good for the wounded person's state of mind to read things like that.

catwalker how can you say your husband didn't care for the OW but his affair was because of feelings?

TheOriginalFab - it's something WWIFN has talked about far more articulately than I could. DH was at a vulnerable point in his life - middle aged, feeling old, had had a disappointment at work - and, without going into too much detail, he found himself in a situation outside of work where he was greatly admired by a number of people, including the ow. He enjoyed the flattery, admiration and attention and the feelings they induced in them. They conducted most of their affair by text and so created a fantasy world which crumbled in the cold light of day when they actually had their sexual encounter. For a while he was addicted to the feelings that being admired and looked up to induced in him - they made him feel good about himself. I can understand this - I remember the first valentine card I received as a teenager - I didn't like the sender at all, but boy did I feel good to have received the card and by association the attention and admiration of a member of the opposite sex. It's obvious to me from his subsequent behaviour towards the ow that he didn't have any strong feelings for her as an individual at all.

I UNDERSATNND AND thank you for the explanation.

whenwillifeelnormal - amazing, amazing, amazing woman.

has a disastrous day today. DH went to see his psychologist today, but while he was there i was terrified that he would have a revelation and want to leave. I was really upset when he came back and said that there are problems in our marriage (main one is that we have an unequal relationship and i'm too controlling), that led him to have an affair. He told me that his psychologist said that we would have to see a relationship counsellor and that most couples who see a relationship counsellor end up seperating.
He was supposed to be taking the kids out, but decided to stay and talk when i said that i didn't want to be left alone (i was feeling suicidal at this point). But then started criticising me and our relationship and making me feel even worse.
i then asked him to go out after all as i wanted to be alone. he said he would to let me sleep (kids were really noisy). I was feeling really awful at this point and felt that i couldn't go on. i thought it would be a good idea to drink a load of rum and take the rest of my sleeping pills, but whilst i was drinking the rum i worked out that i didn't actually have enough sleeping pills to do the job. He rang me when i was a little pissed and crying and i told him i wouldn't kill myself as i didn't have enough sleeping pills and then i went to sleep.
he then came round with his parents, woke me up and said he was taking me to A&E and if i didn't go he would call an ambulance. i feel really stupid and embarrassed by the whole thing. i don't know if i really wanted to do it or if i was just feeling desperate. Anyway, i've worked out that sleeping pills can cause depression and so have decided to stop taking them (only took them for 5 nights), which is why i'm still awake and have started St. John's wort. him waking me up and saying that he was taking me to A&E shocked me into realising that i don't really want to end up in an acute psychiatric ward.
just feel so sad, i feel he has started detaching from me since seeing his psychologist this morning and us seeing a relationship counsellor is us going on the road to seperation.
only yesterday we were deciding to arrange a few nights away for our wedding anniversary in the summer, now he's saying he doesn't know if we'll want to go.

Molly, have been lurking on your thread and didn't want you to go unanswered for too long. I know nothing of this sort of thing, but wanted to offer you some support.

Think you really need to speak to your parents and your GP, and maybe get some counselling on your own. Also think your H is being a complete B***d! Sorry, not what you want to hear, but even if you are all those things he said - which I don't think you are - he didn't have to have an affair. No one is 'forced' to have an affair. Also, you have no idea what was really said in his session. And what BULLSHIT about relationship counselling being the road to splitting up. NO reputable psychologist would say such a thing! He is using your biggest fear against you to try to put you back in your place and to stop questioning him. So angry for you.

And this is just a start to him justifying his actions, I think. Like I say, I don't much about this but he is behaving appalling when he has made you feel this way. Please get some help RL independently of him. You need support, help and DISTANCE from this 'man'.

Big hugs. Wish I could do more to help. X

Molly, you are stronger than you are realising!!! Everyday look in the mirror and repeatedly say...... I am getting through this!
Admitting to yourself that maybe the best option is to leave him is a very hard one to make but you will be surprised how you adjust! Routines are easier at times and confidence comes back believe me. It's a rocky road dont get me wrong but you can do this. Xx

'The last discussion that he had with her on sunday evening, he told her that he hadn't told me about the incident at her flat and that he was worried that i would kill myself (i don't mind him making her feel more guilty and ashamed, though i doubt that was his intention). I don't think he had any idea that i would be so badly affected by discovering the affair, i don't know why!'

This is from a good way upthread, but the same theme has recurred lately.

He doesn't like you, Molly, and he is not repentant about the affair, and it went further than he has admitted. How dare he come from the psychologist and dump whatever he felt like dumping right into your lap, no doubt half of it completely made up and the rest highly dubious and based on whatever selective ideas he gleaned from hearing the psychologist's reaction to the sort of lies he seems to be very good at spinning.

He is quite a cruel man to say a while ago to the OW that you were suicidal, and again to say he had no idea you would be so hurt by him having an affair. Doing you a favour of some sort by staying with you because you were suicidal? Who ends up looking good in that scenario? Who ends up looking like some sort of crazy ball and chain? Neither of them feels guilty, Molly.

Molly - he said you are the controlling one! No - he is the controlling one, believe you me. I don't believe for one moment what he says the psychologist said by the way. He's controlling you, threatening and playing mind games.

You need proper help here from your GP - St Johns Wort is ok, but it's not enough for you right now. You need to talk to your GP honestly, and take it from there. I think many women would feel suicidal living with a monster like your H, so please accept that there is nothing wrong with you, he is making you like this - it's not your fault.

He sounds a horrible man, and you will be so much happier without him. But first you need to help yourself.

Molly - the next time you feel like that, please phone the Samaritans, you speak to someone straightaway who makes no judgements and allows you to just talk without giving advice. I have been where you are now and I did phone them because I had nowhere/noone to turn to and I was at home at 2.00am with the DC on my own as "D"H was staying elsewhere but refusing to say where (Obviously now I know he was with OW). I spoke to a lovely lady for about an hour and she got me through the night .

Please get some counselling for yourself and it also may help to look into co-dependency - that was the first thing my counsellor suggested to me (a book by Melody Beattie (Co-Dependent No more - How to stop controlling others and start controlling yourself instead). I am not suggesting you are controlling, indeed having read the book I worked out I was more controlled than controlling, by my DH's behaviour.

It's a complicated thing but the book helped me step back a bit and detach (my mental health was in pieces at the time). You need to think of yourself as needing some intensive care atm (I don't know what sleeping pills you were prescribed but my GP only gave me diazepam for a week just to calm me down as I was hyperventilating etc.

Surround yourself with RL help and support as much as possible. You have a long and rocky road ahead whether the marriage survives or not .

Thinking of you, I have been there and I can say it was truly the worse experience of my life.

Molly I'm sorry you had such an awful day yesterday. I mentioned the metaphor of the storm raging, downthread. Perhaps yesterday was its eye.

I've got to raise some suspicions I have, I'm afraid. How certain are you that he actually saw a psychologist yesterday? I remember thinking it was unusual that he managed to get an appointment on a Saturday at such short notice, but his responses on return, sound more like he's benefited from the twisted psychology of the OW, rather than a qualified, objective professional. Is it possible then, that he went to see the OW yesterday and didn't go near a psychologist?

I hope you're feeling stronger today and better able to get support from people who love you unconditionally, because my feeling is that the moment someone tries to blame you for his own behaviour, is the time for him to go. You now need support from people other than him and his parents - please reach out and get that help, whoever you decide it will be.

I think that when you felt that fear yesterday that something was going to unravel at the psychologist's and he was going to leave you, it was a very powerful subconscious instinct; almost as though you knew there was something not quite fitting about this "appointment" - and at the very least, his frame of mind approaching it.

I wonder whether one of your barriers to asking him to leave for a while is that you fear he will go to the OW, especially as she has a ready-made home for him? But much as I understand that, if he goes there, it will give you some answers going forward. If he doesn't go anywhere near her on the other hand - and starts to fight for you, then you will re-start this process on a much firmer footing and with greater hope that he wants to stay in this marriage, will take total responsibility for his behaviour and start looking inwards for blame, rather than opting for the cowardly refuge of deflecting it - and trying to pass it to you.

It is not your fault. It is not. It is not. You are not a bad person, and he is not a good enough person to be worth ending your life for. "Men are mere mortals who it's not worth going to your grave for", as the song says.

I agree with everyone who says his report-back from the alleged psychologist is deeply dodgy. He's lying and messing with your head. Reach out for whatever support you need, because your children were nearly deprived of a good, loving mother yesterday on the basis of a load of lies and mind games. He is behaving very, very badly and it is totally unfair and unjust that you should be bearing the brunt of it.

Soon you will see it, get angry and start fighting back. He does not deserve to win this. He does not deserve to be able to tell everyone "oh my wife was unstable so she tried to kill herself, but thankfully [OW] was nearby to help me through it". You have to stick around to show the truth! And the truth is: you are a good, loyal, loving woman whose DH decided to mess around, lie and blame you for it all. If there's a good man in there somewhere, one of these days he is going to be devastated when he realises not only what he's done but how much worse it nearly was.

You can, you will get through this, but it's really shit and you deserve a lot of help and support through it.

I am really really sorry for you , last november went through same sort of thing , was having a great sex at home , only to find out my partner of 12 years had paid for sex with an escort twice last june on the days that i was down looking after my eldery mum ( i go down to visist her every fortnight). we have been for conuselling , and not once would he tell me why he did it, he said it meant nothing he would never do it again , and never meant to hurt me , so why go twice . Then last spetemeber my friend found him on a dating website , when i confronted him he said he was just curious, then i found the escort giel number in his wallet in november and then found emails arrange the times etc at her place. Found the money taken out of the account in his bank stataments and he still tried to deny it , we he was corned he admitted it we are still together but it still hurts everyday. We have had conuselling , but the thing is i do not trust him at all. I suspect you DH has slept with this woman and never thought you would find out . I do not think they go out the intend to hurt us , but all actions have to be paid for , usually it is just us getting are hearts broken. I do wonder if mum woul dbe so forgiving if it was the women going off and sleeping around !!!! Not that i could every do revenge sex.

WWIFN, he definately went to the psychologist yesterday as i saw the confirmation email and the OW lives too far away to go for an hour. I believe he has stopped seeing her. when i was trying to tell him how bad i felt yesterday i don't think he believed me, he thought that i was trying to manipulate him into staying home that afternoon. He does feel guilty about having the affair, but since yesterday he believes it happened because we have marital problems, but he is commited to making our marriage work. hopefully it will.

WWIFN - just inrtigued by your posts and wondering about your qualifications? Are you a marital therapist?

so he doesn't want you to see a relationship consellor because it will probably lead to a break-up. Sounds to me like he's spinning you a line. What has he proposed instead, to help your marriage?

Hi molly. I'm really sorry you're going through this, I imagine there really must be days when you think you just can't go on. There are lots of people on here cheering you on... you can do this!

I think that marriages can survive an affair but only if the unfaithful partner takes full responsibility for the affair. As soon as he / she starts to blame the spouse, recovery is on very shaky ground. Your H needs to know this, that your marriage will only work if he takes the full responsibility. By blaming you, even if it's just a little bit, he's undermining the whole recovery process.

molly have you suffered from suicidal thoughts before or is this the first time as a reaction to H's affair?

No, this is the first time i have felt suicidal. I don't think it is a reaction to the affair, but the fear of him leaving. One day he is sure that he wants to be with me and we're planning our wedding anniversary, the next day he's not sure and is confused about what he wants. i don't know how i'm supposed to start feeling better when i an in a constant state of limbo. we're going to see the relationship counsellor on friday which terrifies me.